He thinks he sees something – but is it really there? Maybe it’s like that notion he has of his country, that there’s something greater than him, something grander, something beyond the everyday. Something incorporeal but tangible, a symbol, a sign, a beacon. Something he can swear he can feel in the air, all around him, indestructible in its bravado and yet so fragile.

He fights, doing his job that’s really his duty; maybe not for people, or for society. For an ideal. Several ideals. Maybe just Ideas. For order. For history. For democracy. (Maybe not even that. Maybe for The People.)

In the corner of his eye there’s the same suspicious movement, and the spook he’s been haunting materializes. She hurries away with a gait that is supposed to look carefree and inconspicuous to the untrained eye. He reports to HQ, and moves. The time for introspection has passed, and the justification of his life’s work is getting away.